Castleford bus firm’s licence cut after safety failings

M Travel, which runs services to schools across the Five Towns, had its operating licence cut by the Office of the Traffic Commissioner after an investigation into its vehicles found a number of maintenance defects.

A public enquiry last Thursday heard that one vehicle had serious braking defects, which were potentially seriously dangerous, another had an insecure emergency window, which was likely to fail, and a third had a flat tyre with one of the wheel nuts insecure.

As a result of the investigation by the Traffic Commission and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, the firm, which also runs service buses across the area, is not allowed to operate more than 26 vehicles following the hearing and it will not be able to run more than 20 buses from the end of October.

During the hearing Kevin Rooney, the bus and coach industry regulator for the north east of England said the firm had “gone backwards” since it last appeared at an inquiry last year.

Mr Rooney added the company failed to provide a maintenance audit of its vehicles.

He said: “The failure to provide that on time shakes my trust in the operator’s intention to operate compliantly.

“It is also concerning that neither the operator nor the transport manager appears to be pro-active in addressing the maintenance issues.”

No-one from M Travel was available for comment when contacted by the Express.